Bishop Herman Students Cry For Toilet Facility

By; Seraphine Nyuiemedi

Students of Bishop Herman College in Kpando Municipality of the Volta Region, have appealed to government and other relevant authorities, to provide them with better toilet facilities and potable water.

According to some form three students who spoke to GBC News, they have resorted to defecating in the open, since they gained admission into the school due to the bad nature of the only two toilet facilities in the school.

Popularly called BIHECO, with students’ population of over two thousand currently has only a 20-seater toilet facility and two latrine that are all in bad condition, forcing most of the students to rather defecate in the open.

This notwithstanding, a 10-seater toilet facility which was started about four years ago has also been abandoned for reasons best known to the authorities.

Some of the students who have been defecating in the open for nearly 3 years now shared their plight with GBC News.

“Toilet facility is being built, but it’s not yet completed. Since we came to form one, they were building it, but they are not done yet. But there’s a toilet facility at the top which is very small for the student population so we do it in the bush. We will like government to come to our aid.”

“Sometimes we even see snakes in the bush and so we feel insecure. This has been happening since we came to form one and we are currently in form three.”

A form three student, Anumah Prince Charles, also lamented bitterly about the struggles they usually go through to have access to water.

“In this house particularly Bishop Lodonu’s House, House Seven, we normally struggle to get water.

Sometimes, more than a week before they pump water into our booster, sometimes for the whole semester, we don’t get water and we have to go to the top house to fetch water.

And even the water at the top house is not even clean water, its metallic water, which is somehow brown and even that one you have to go and stand in a queue. He continued “Sometimes we don’t bath before attending classes due to the unavailability of water.

Sometimes, we don’t get water to wash our things and sometimes we don’t even get drinking water. We want the government to come and help us fix our problems.”

The students said the lack of adequate toilet facilities and access to good water increase the possibility of contracting diarrhoea and other sanitation-related diseases. They are, therefore, appealing to government and other relevant authorities to as a matter of urgency come to their aid.

A staff who spoke on condition of anonymity, said authorities, including the Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, the Municipal Chief Executive, the Regional Minister and officials from the Municipal Assembly, had visited the school on several occasions, to engage management over the issue but nothing positive has come out of it yet.

Source: Anchorghana.com